A single pair of lashes then goes on to be sold abroad for more than 70
TIMES what the girls are paid to painstakingly make them.

The investigation, jointly carried out with OpenWorld News, also revealed that
the company making lashes for the British market leader Eylure and other big
names also use a network of smaller workshops, known as partnerships, and
home workers, where salaries are less than HALF the £50 a month legal
minimum.

But even that is less than a third of what a local family would have to earn
to meet basic needs.

We discovered one new mother nursing a baby while making lashes for around 2p
a pair.

In the most shocking case we found a girl born with no arms was using her
toes to make lashes for another factory. She is paid just 1p per pair.

The manufacturer Eylure uses, PT Royal Korindah, also makes lashes for many of
the biggest names in the industry, including L’Oréal, Shu Uemura, MAC, Make
Up For Ever and Maybelline. There is no suggestion that any of these
companies were aware of the low wages.

Eylure makes branded lashes for many stars. Its Katy Perry range starts at
£5.95 here — none of which it says are made by subcontractors.

But it is a trade based on taking advantage of some of the cheapest skilled
labour in the world.

Workers say their task requires intense concentration which leaves them with
sore eyes and aching limbs and backs. By age 40 their eyesight is too bad to
keep working.

Kuswati, 20, is one of many girls who work at one of the workshops scattered
around Purbalingga — or in clusters, or alone, at home. We found her sitting
on a bench, knitting hairs on to a thread strung between two nails hammered
into a table.

What makes the slender youngster, who is wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “We
make it sweet… ”, so remarkable, is that she was born with no arms.

She explains: “I have been making eyelashes since I was 15.

“I use my feet to thread them.”

She is paid just 1p per pair and can manage only 20 pairs a day. It is hard
work. First she has to separate five hairs from the bundle on the side of
her loom.

She holds a long, hooked needle with her left foot and clasps the hair between
the toes of her right, working it into a loop and knotting it on to the
thread. She has to get 60 on to each thread, which will be used to make one
pair of eyelashes.

She says: “I work from 9am to 4pm, but it makes my back very painful.”

The lashes are collected by an agent supplying the Sung Shim factory. It
produces lashes for a number of US brands. The factory declined to comment.

Speaking of her future, Kuswati says: “I want to run a store and become a
businesswoman. Doing this is my last choice.”

But she laughs at the idea. Her T-shirt cost £1.65 and her shorts £2.75. “I
had to save for a year to buy them,” she says.

We found Friti, 20, making eyelashes for a company that supplies Royal
Korindah on a home-made loom on the floor of her shack.

She is also caring for her two-month-old son, who is lying on a blanket next
to her.

She said: “I finished school but did not have the money to go on to higher
education. I wanted to be a teacher. Now I will always be doing this — I
don’t know what else to do. Sometimes I feel dizzy and I have problems with
my eyes, but I can’t afford glasses.”

The company makes 30million eyelashes a year. America is the largest market,
the UK is second.

Most of the workers are women who start in the factory at 18 and they work
until 40, says Very, “because after that their eyes go”.

Like most in the area, the company is South Korean.

Very says its founder chose Purbalingga as there was already a culture of
making hair extensions.

Critics suspect the appeal is the low minimum wage.

Royal Korindah refused to comment when contacted.

Original Additions, on behalf of Eylure, told The Sun on Sunday they welcome
the investigation and that they were unaware Royal Korindah was
subcontracting.

An Original Additions spokesman said: “We welcome reporters visiting the
facility and acknowledge that Eylure does work with Royal Korindah, which is
understood to be one of the best and most respected facilities in Indonesia,
used by a number of leading brands and which contributes enormously to the
local community.

“As you have confirmed, Royal Korindah pay the minimum wage set by the
Indonesian government, or higher.

“We do not work with any sub-factories or partnerships factories in the
production of our products.”

The Asia Floor Wage Alliance — which campaigns for workers’ rights —
calculates an Indonesian family of four needs £166-a-month to cover their
basic needs.

Last year the Purbalingga Manpower Agency said a third of the estimated
100,000 workers in the area’s industry were being paid less than the minimum
wage.